WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?Leadership is an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.

LEADERSHIP TIPS“The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning: intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be, or both.” Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee (Harvard Business School Press)

The Big Challenge: Are most people eager to be persuaded, moved to action, or changed?

Empirical evidence says no. The vast majority of people (88%) report that they break their New Year's resolution before the end of January. And New Year's resolutions are usually changes people decide they want to make themselves! So, clearly, whether they're talking about getting physically fit, financially fit, or mentally fit, people do not find change easy.

Here is an example:

Q: I always make one or two New Year resolutions but have had little success in following through on them. What can I do this year to achieve my goals?

People openly resist being persuaded. They become overburdened with information, are skeptical of spin, and are wary of those trying to persuade them to do something.

At the same time, more and more people are trying to break through with a message. We want to influence others to do something. Good communication may not make a risky project sound safe, but poor communication may fail to convey the benefits of a good project or good deal.

"Once words leave your mouth, credibility goes either up or down. Trust remains stable, grows or plunges. All the raw ingredients of communication (words, body language, emotion, logic, action, inaction, listening, branding, perception, structure, and so forth) produce change--either positive or negative," writes business communications expert Dianna Booher in her book "WHAT MORE CAN I SAY? Why Communication Fails And What To Do About It."

In business, the key to communication is many times the difference between an effective leader and an ineffective leader. "To influence someone, we have to start with the other person's reality, not ours," says Booher.

Paul Spiegelman says, "Let's face it: Employees in most companies get treated as second-class citizens. If that's the case, how can we expect them to treat customers well? The same is true for employees in the healthcare field.

In healthcare, we need a model for the delivery of a great experience for each patient. It is not a question of ranking what in more important, but a question of leading and lagging indicators of success. In that regard, I firmly believe that the most successful organizations with the most loyal customers (or patients) have focused first on an internal culture of engagement where leadership shows a genuine interest in the growth and development of its people. If you do that, accountability will only increase, not create excuses for lack of execution.

Our industry needs to be shaken up a bit. My hope is that our book will stir healthy conversation and action to improve internal cultures in healthcare. It is sorely needed."

Divine Law can neither be ignored nor put aside. Perhaps, the most important of these laws is the 'law of love.' Put simply, "Love is Law, Law is Love." This amounts to the same thing as "the gift of giving" without the "hope of reward or pay," or serving others.

The Law of Love flows through all religions. Here is an interesting story, Christmas Love by Candy Chand, that speaks to the Law of Love:

"Each December, I vowed to make Christmas a calm and peaceful experience. I had cut back on nonessential obligations -- extensive card writing, endless baking, decorating, and even overspending. Yet still, I found myself exhausted, unable to appreciate the precious family moments, and of course, the true meaning of Christmas.

My son, Nicholas, was in kindergarten that year. It was an exciting season for a six-year-old. For weeks, he'd been memorizing songs for his school's "Winter Pageant."

I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd be working the night of the production. Unwilling to miss his shining moment, I spoke with his teacher. She assured me there'd be a dress rehearsal the morning of the presentation. All parents unable to attend that evening were welcome to come then. Fortunately, Nicholas seemed happy with the compromise.

So, the morning of the dress rehearsal, I filed in ten minutes early, found a spot on the cafeteria floor and sat down. Around the room, I saw several other parents quietly scampering to their seats. As I waited, the students were led into the room. Each class, accompanied by their teacher, sat cross-legged on the floor. Then, each group, one by one, rose to perform their song.

Because the public school system had long stopped referring to the holiday as "Christmas," I didn't expect anything other than fun, commercial entertainment -- songs of reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes and good cheer. So, when my son's class rose to sing, "Christmas Love," I was slightly taken aback by its bold title.

Nicholas was aglow, as were all of his classmates, adorned in fuzzy mittens, red sweaters, and bright snowcaps upon their heads. Those in the front row-center stage -- held up large letters, one by one, to spell out the title of the song. As the class would sing "C is for Christmas," a child would hold up the letter C. Then, "H is for Happy," and on and on, until each child holding up his portion had presented the complete message, "Christmas Love."

The performance was going smoothly, until suddenly, we noticed her; a small, quiet, girl in the front row holding the letter "M" upside down -- totally unaware her letter "M" appeared as a "W." The audience of 1st through 6th graders snickered at this little one's mistake. But she had no idea they were laughing at her, so she stood tall, proudly holding her "W." Although many teachers tried to shush the children, the laughter continued until the last letter was raised, and we all saw it together. A hush came over the audience and eyes began to widen. In that instant, we understood the reason we were there, why we celebrated the holiday in the first place, why even in the chaos, there was a purpose for our festivities.

Here is the background regarding the importance of clearly understanding the "intangible identity elements" that consist of the assumptions/beliefs, values/aspirations, vision and guiding principles as it relates to creating a Vision/Mission Statement (along with the supporting business plans that each functional unit will put together based on the leadership developed Vision/Mission Statement).

The Planning Process

Knowing what's important to the leadership of the organization and what they want to see happen allows the leadership team to focus its energy and achieve sustained high performance in taking action. This is true for a person, an organization or a community.

Being clear on the intangible elements of one's identity can build a strong foundation for greater self-awareness, purpose, well-being and building competencies in those areas that are important to you and the other people involved. Here are intangible "identity elements" defined:

*Assumptions/beliefs: A reality map formed through your collective reinforced experience. This would be a manifesto of the mental models you use and believe in to create your work and personal lives.

*Values/Aspirations: An attitude or world-view depicted by one word or one single concept observed through one's behavior. Values often influence people's choices about where to invest their energies. Please recognize that values change over time. Being "fair" means something different for a person at 44 than at 4 years old.

*Vision: A word picture of the future leading from now through near to far reality. You energize people to support your purpose or life signature with an overarching description of what you see.

*Guiding Principles: A universal operating standard that guides decision-making both personally and organizationally. Use guiding principles to align, create trust and walk the talk by putting everybody on the same playing field. Energy isn't wasted in the politics of the team, organization or community because there aren't different rules for everybody.

By writing out, in a SWOT (the firm's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) worksheet, each leadership team member's perception of the company's "identity elements" becomes a work-in-progress toward clarifying what the leadership team collectively (in a combined and confidential SWOT) wants to see happen. Completion of this Consolidated SWOT is the first step in a visioning process.

Please note that it is important to keep each leadership team member's SWOT input confidential (so he or she will be completely honest and direct in what they really think/feel) by sending their individually completed SWOT to an impartial third party who confidentially would group and consolidate the responses into an anonymous composite SWOT for distribution to all leadership team members.

It is recommended that this anonymous composite SWOT be distributed in a strategic planning meeting; that allows for confirming what the leadership team jointly agrees to in their combined perceptions. This meeting would be facilitated by the independent third party who would keep the leadership team on track.

The intangible elements (agreed to during this strategic planning meeting) would result in the final group-approved SWOT providing the foundation for the vision/mission statement; which can then begin to be written in draft format for modification and finalization at the next strategic planning leadership team meeting.

Once the mission/vision statement is finalized and distributed to the company's stakeholders, it serves as the basis for preparing a Corporate Business Plan (made up of individual business plans for each functional unit comprised of: external (Marketing), internal (Operational/Training), financial, and real estate (Facilities).

Each functional business plan should use the same structure as the corporate plan: The Primary Objective or Goal, Sub-objectives or Tasks (building up in order to accomplish the primary objective), Metrics (key success factors) and Quality Assurance (what is in or out of accepted standards).

Because what leadership team members became aware of is "identity-driven," knowing who the company is will help management betterunderstand what is important for the organization to move forward. Once both the leadership and management teams are clearly aware of what they, as a group, plan to achieve through their joint plans, it is a call to take action to clarify and reflect the corporate vision/mission and make the appropriate changes happen through the viable business action plans.

Here is a summary of the strategic planning process:

First step (the intangibles):

From the consolidated SWOT that the leadership team agreed to, list the following intangibles that will serve as the foundation for the corporate Vision/Mission statement:

Assumptions/Beliefs

Values/Aspirations

Vision

Guiding Principles

Second step (the vision/mission statement):

Clear wording of the corporate vision/mission statement that reflects the agreed to intangibles.

Third step (the business unit action plans):

Create each Functional Unit’s business plan that will support the corporate vision/mission statement. Each business unit action plan will list its:

What enables great corporate leaders to detect signals that their industry, or perhaps the entire world, is about to change? How are they able to place their companies in a position to capitalize on that change?

It boils down to visionary capacity. Leaders who lack it often guide their companies to obsolescence and failure. The rare leaders who cultivate a strong vision have disrupted industries, created new ones, and remade the world.

The presence of a vision positively correlates with the perception of a helpful sense of direction. It turns out that even in down-to-earth places, the Vision Thing is useful.

The guidance and inspiration that a vision provides doesn't just affect people directly (followers who are aware of the vision), but also indirectly affects people (customers who are unaware of the presence of a particular leadership vision). The results seem to indicate that the Vision Thing--when done right--leads to happier employees and happier customers, and thereby undoubtedly has a positive effect on the bottom line.

The importance of you in your vision cannot be underestimated. You play a critical role in making your vision powerful through the way you show up, the way you behave, and the way you accept the consequences of your words.

The values you live by and emanate are part of your story already. They must also become part of your identity as a leader.

The business case is compelling. Companies with more women in leadership posts simply perform better. Fortune 500 firms with the most female board members outperform those with the least by 26% on return on invested capital and 16% on return on sales, according to a 2011 Catalyst study.

Yet the number of women at the top is barely budging: some 5% of Fortune 500 chief executive officers and 17% of board members.

“If you want to change the numbers, you have to get men involved,” says Mike Kaufmann, chief financial officer of Cardinal Health. He’s doing just that: He leads the company women’s networking group.

Executives elsewhere are following suit. Bain & Co.’s global women’s leadership council, created in 2009, is now about 40% male. And for the first time, the National Association for Female Executives is including men in its fall round table meeting.

Our instincts aren't so irrational after all. In fact, there is often logic in emotion, and emotion in logic.

"Feeling Smart" by Eyal Winter reveals the hidden rationality in feelings like trust, anger, shame, ego, and generosity, and ultimately presents a surprising and very persuasive defense of how we think--even when we don't.

Emotions are an effective and sophisticated tool for balancing and complementing our rational side. In the end, it is the feeling and thinking person who has the advantage, not the person who relies on thought alone.

They were formed, shaped, and developed during our evolution in order to amplify our chances of survival. Humanity has been blessed to have, in addition to an emotional mechanism, another important mechanism assisting us in decision making--the ability to conduct rational analysis.

In contrast to emotions such as fear, sadness, and regret, which can be defined as autonomous emotions, emotions such as anger, envy, hatred, and empathy are social emotions. The distinction between autonomous emotions and social emotions is especially important for understanding the concept of "rational emotions." Autonomous emotions influence our own decisions, while social emotions influence both our decisions and the decisions of others.

In many cases our emotions are there to enable us to arrive at rapid and nearly automatic decisions, but in other cases, especially when weighty issues are at stake, our emotions challenge our rational thought processes. In the end, it is the feeling and thinking person who has the advantage, not the person who relies on thought alone.

The way we manage organizations seems increasingly out of date. Survey after survey shows that a majority of employees feel disengaged from their companies. The epidemic of organizational disillusionment goes way beyond Corporate America.

All humans are presently experiencing a level of consciousness but not all humans are experiencing the same level of consciousness according to Ken Wilber and the proponents of Spiral Dynamics, a neo-science based on the research of Clare Graves and co-developed by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan. Using colors to delineate differing levels of thinking or “memes,” the Spiral Dynamics model attempts to clarify the evolutionary journey of consciousness from basic survival to Universal integration.

The next stage in human evolution corresponds to Maslow's "self-actualizing" level; it has been variously labeled authentic, integral or Teal. This stage is the last one identified by Maslow's hierarchy of needs but other researchers and thinkers have established with a fair amount of confidence that evolution doesn't stop there. This shift from Green (in Spiral Dynamics) to Teal is a particularly momentous one in the human journey--so much so that Clare Graves and others in his wake have used the term "first-tier" consciousness for all stages up to Green and the term "second-tier" for the stages starting with Teal.

The higher people have traveled on the developmental ladder, the more effective they are. Each shift occurs when we are able to reach a higher vantage point from which we see the world in broader perspective. Like a fish that discovers water for the first time when it jumps above the surface, gaining a new perspective requires that we dis-identify from something we were previously engulfed in.

We develop a sensitivity for situations that don't quite feel right, situations that demand that we speak up and take action, even in the face of opposition or with seemingly low odds of success, out of a sense of integrity and authenticity.

Critical insights and food for thought for leaders contemplating a transition in the way their organizations operate, are really considering that the transition to Evolutionary-Teal will be refining our understanding of what it takes to help the organization make the leap.

If two critical conditions (of the CEO "gets it" and the members of the board "get it") are in place, there is good news: that many roads lead to a Teal organization. Experience seems to indicate that if the CEO is persistent, s/he will get there one way or another.

Living organizations change in increments, so rather than changing everything at once, it can make sense to start with only one of the three breakthroughs of Teal Organizations (self-management, wholeness or evolutionary purpose) and to introduce the others over time.

Try listening to what best suits the organization's needs. Perhaps, purpose needs to be explored first, because once all colleagues resonate with it, they will have energy for self-management and wholeness.

An article by Monica Langley in the Wall Street Journal summarizes a series of interviews she had with Steve and provides fascinating insights into his thinking. It also serves as excellent learning for leadership.

In the interview, Steve talked about a significant event that occurred at a Starbucks when he asked his longtime friend, Ford's CEO Alan Mulally, how he had turned around Ford. Alan basically said he focused on teamwork. This was a big wake-up call for Steve.

He ran Microsoft like a conglomerate where he consulted with business unit chiefs individually and dispensed marching orders. He focused on data and details and expected the same from his business leaders. After meeting with Alan Mulally, he "...realized he had trained managers to see the trees, not the forest." He had an image of himself as, "...big, bald, and loud" and forced his will on his executives. He says that it finally hit him that he was the problem---"Face it: I'm the pattern."

According to the WSJ article, Steve met with his executives bi-laterally, rather than in a group, and he pitted them against one another in a competitive contest that reinforced the status quo. By focusing on data and details, he kept the organization in the past domain where it supported its legacy, rather then seeing new possibilities in a dynamic external environment.